Final Prototype

The following are the objects we used:

The printer sits on the side ofhte surface until it is needed at the end of the interaction. It it made out of blue foam and paper, then painted.

These are the cards that are given to students by professors assigning work on pieces of interest. They are the size of a credit card so that they fit easily into the wallet, and have a graphical representation on the front which not only gives a preview of the piece, but gives the impression of an invitation to see the piece. Finally, there are terms of interest scattered on the front of hte card in font size relative to the importance of the word. This supplements having to refer back to the asisgnment prompt.

Tour guide objects are used to represent tour pieces. When placed on the surface they will recall all the elements contained in the tour, and embody the iconic image of the tour guide holding up a flag when moving through a space so people in the group can identify them. These objects are made out of foam, paper and paint as well.

I chose to build the objects out of foam because I thought it was more dynamic then using the laser cutter or rapid prototype machine. I can easily build a CAD model to implement in either of these machines, but as I was prototyping the figurines I found that the process was dynamic, I was constantly building on my original idea, and it was hard to anticipate what something was going to feel like in my hands unless I built it myself. That being said there are some really interesting services which democratize design by allowing common people to create professional looking projects. One such service can be found at ponoko.com

Final Prototype W/ Annotations: